Bill -983 is sponsored by 22 Council members and is set for 2nd reading in the Council tonight. The bill would create new reporting and enforcement mechanisms for economic incentives. I think the motivation behind the bill is great. I think big parts of it are great. But I voted against it in our Budget & Finance Committee last night.

Since the bill has 22 sponsors and passed Budget & Finance last night by a 10-2 vote, I wanted to explain my position against the bill.

The bills has four main components -- it requires an incentive recipient to predict in advance of its project the number of jobs that will be filled by Davidson County residents and the wages that will be paid, it requires the predictions to be incorporated into the formal incentives agreement each recipient has with Metro, it requires quarterly reporting after the incentive starts, and it empowers the Council to cancel the incentive if the recipient fails to comply with the predictions.

As things stand today, every incentives recipient has a formal agreement with Metro, and there are different degrees of enforcement or claw backs built into each contract.  Importantly, the Metro Council has to approve every incentives agreement before Metro can enter the agreement.I am all in favor of standardizing the information we receive before an agreement is signed. I am in favor of continuing to strengthen the enforcement mechanisms in our incentive agreements. However, I don't think it makes sense to shift enforcement from the executive branch to the legislative branch of Metro government. I don't think it makes sense to have 40 Council members reviewing quarterly reports and also then deciding whether to pull the plug on the incentive agreement. I think it is much better policy for the Council to focus on our existing power to review and approve all of these contracts before they go into effect.